New Delhi, (The Telegraph): The Sangh student wing ABVP has demanded the expulsion of a group of Jawaharlal Nehru University students who organised a march against Afzal Guru's hanging, condemning them as "anti-national" - the same tag it had used to secure the suspension of Rohith Vemula.
The ABVP today declared it would seek human resource development minister Smriti Irani's intervention to ensure action is taken. It also held a protest in front of the office of vice-chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar and later met him to press for immediate expulsion.
Kumar said the varsity's proctorial committee would probe the matter. "The organisers have certainly committed indiscipline," he added.
A small group of students - their number was put at 30-40 by some and around 150 by others - had marched about 1km from Sabarmati Hostel to Ganga Dhaba on the campus yesterday, shouting slogans against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru three years ago. The students, many of whom were former members of the Democratic Students' Union, took out the procession although they had been denied permission.
ABVP students tried to stop them, leading to a scuffle.
Saurav Sharma, ABVP leader and joint secretary of JNU Students Union, alleged he was attacked. Six FIRs have been lodged against Umar Khalid, the organiser of the march, and several other students who participated in it.
At the University of Hyderabad, the ABVP had declared Rohith and four other Dalit students "anti-national" because they opposed the hanging of Yakub Memon for his role in the Bombay blasts. The union had also alleged that the Dalit students had assaulted an ABVP member. The Union HRD ministry sent repeated reminders to the university to act against the five. Rohith committed suicide last month, weeks after he was suspended.
Professor C.P. Bhambri, a former JNU teacher, said the ABVP was behaving like the "protector" of the nation.
"This incident could have been dismissed as just a trivial thing. There are people like these DSU groups in every democratic society. People express their feeling in a wrong manner to be noticed and generate controversy. They should be ignored with the contempt they deserve," Bhambri said.
"The ABVP is asserting itself as a guardian or protector of the nation. They are taking this issue too far. They know the new vice-chancellor has come and the government at the Centre is led by the BJP," he said.
HRD ministry spokesperson Ghanshyam Goel dismissed this as baseless. "There is no truth in these allegations that the government is supporting ABVP," Goel said.
A similar march was held on the campus last year too. Then, the organisers had been fined Rs 5,000 each.
Registrar Bhupinder Zutshi, however, appeared to agree with the ABVP that the march was "anti-national". "How can you talk about disintegration of the country? Is it national?" Zutshi said.
Complaints of "anti-national activities" have been made to the HRD ministry from other campuses, including IIT Madras, IIT Delhi and Aligarh Muslim University. At IIT Delhi, the screening of Iffat Fatima's film on Kashmir, Khoon Diy Baarav, on January 29 was disrupted on the grounds that it was "anti-national".
Supreme Court lawyer K.V. Dhananjay, who is an expert on constitutional issues, said the slogans criticising Afzal Guru's conviction should be scrutinised to see if the students were saying he was wrongfully convicted or whether they were justifying his role in the Parliament attack.
"Anybody can disagree with a court judgment with justification. If they say the conviction was wrong, they must justify why. In case they do not, their action is an offence," Dhananjay said.
He said demanding division of the country can be treated as "anti-national" under the Indian Penal Code. Some slogans had included a call for " azaadi (freedom)". Counter-slogans by the ABVP included a threat to spill blood.
Chinmay Mahanand, the leader of Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students' Association (BAPSA) which took part in the march, distanced itself from the sloganeering.
"Some students were shouting those slogans. We participated in the march since we are against death sentence. The ABVP is targeting us as we are demanding justice for Rohith Vemula," Mahanand, an accused in the yesterday case, said.
